04 fevereiro 2015

Perceber o Syriza e porque a Alemanha teme a Grécia

O que dizia Alexis Tsipras em Janeiro de 2014: "A New Deal for Europe. The European economy has suffered 6 years of crisis, with average unemployment above 12 percent and the dangers of a 1930s-style deflation on its doorstep. Europe could and should collectively borrow at low interest rates to finance a program of economic reconstruction and sustainable development with emphasis on investment in people, technology and infrastructure. The program would help crisis-hit economies to break free from the vicious circle of recession and rising debt ratios, create jobs, and sustain recovery. The USA did it. Why couldn’t we?"

O que dizia o programa eleitoral do Syriza em Setembro de 2014: "A «European New Deal» of public investment financed by the European Investment Bank" [e diferença relativamente a Portugal: "considering the huge effort that will be required to restore pensions, our government, instead of selling-out public property, it will transfer a part of it to social security funds"].

Para entender a renovada agressividade da Alemanha contra a Grécia, eis o que dizia o Syriza no seu programa: "we declare once again that the issue of the Nazi Occupation forced loan from the Bank of Greece is open for us. Our partners know it. It will become the country’s official position from our first days in power".

O que dizia Albrecht Ritschl em Junho de 2011:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If there was a list of the worst global bankruptcies in history, where would Germany rank?
Ritschl: Germany is king when it comes to debt. Calculated based on the amount of losses compared to economic performance, Germany was the biggest debt transgressor of the 20th century.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Greece can't compare?
Ritschl: No, the country has played a minor role. It is only the contagion danger for other euro-zone countries that is the problem.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Germany of today is considered the embodiment of stability. How many times has Germany become insolvent in the past?
Ritschl: That depends on how you do the math. During the past century alone, though, at least three times. After the first default during the 1930s, the US gave Germany a "haircut" in 1953, reducing its debt problem to practically nothing. Germany has been in a very good position ever since, even as other Europeans were forced to endure the burdens of World War II and the consequences of the German occupation. Germany even had a period of non-payment in 1990.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Really? A default?
Ritschl: Yes, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl refused at the time to implement changes to the London Agreement on German External Debts of 1953. Under the terms of the agreement, in the event of a reunification, the issue of German reparations payments from World War II would be newly regulated. The only demand made was that a small remaining sum be paid, but we're talking about minimal sums here. With the exception of compensation paid out to forced laborers, Germany did not pay any reparations after 1990 -- and neither did it pay off the loans and occupation costs it pressed out of the countries it had occupied during World War II. Not to the Greeks, either.